The Strépy-Theiu ship lift was the tallest in the world until some bloke in China built a bigger one and spoiled its fun, but it’s still a bit of a thrill to join a couple of three hundred ton barges in a giant indoor bathtub to be gently dropped seventy-five metres or so over a cliff to the river below.
There are cables and counterweights and clever engineers who ensure that the journey is smooth and surprisingly swift. Even if it has not quite made the list of “wonders of the modern world”, which it well may have done, it is a wonder to us at least.
In the shimmering mid morning heat there was just a touch of the surreal about it as it loomed on the horizon. Surely Belgium has never looked more like Dubai!
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